I haven't posted on this blog in YEARS, but this morning I just had a thought... Something I will NEVER understand. I wanted to keep a running list, but on what platform? Back to Twinkie Town! So here goes. Feel free to suggest other things in the comments!
I will never understand...
when people have a big dinner and then don't feel hungry for a long time into the next day.
My body has definitely already digested all previous food by the time I wake up. I'm ready for breakfast ERRRDAY!
people who rather workout than do... anything else.
Don't get me wrong, I go to the gym. But that is for my general health so that I don't have a heart attack at the age of 35. If it's between Korean BBQ VS gym, KBBQ's gonna take the cake. Eating cake's going to take the cake too.
people who refuse to put their shopping cart in the proper place.
Don't be a dick, man. You don't like it when a cart is in a parking spot and you have to move the cart before you can park and you wouldn't want your car to be scratched by a cart, so don't fuck it up for everyone else either!
In honor of it being Friday (yes, I do celebrate it weekly, much like our good friend Rebecca Black), I have decided to focus this blog on everything wrong with this video. It’s like eating a bowl of cereal: only it’s Krusty-O’s with a razor blade inside every box.
0:17- Why does this teenage girl go to sleep with her whole face plastered in makeup?
0:34- Are these kids really old enough to drive? They look 14… (According to Wikipedia, Rebecca Black is 13 years old.) And I can’t believe they have a convertible! I wouldn’t trust kids like this with a convertible! Clearly no one wears their seat belts! And the two kids in the back aren’t even sitting down on the seat! This is 2 years from a drunk driving accident.
0:38- “Which seat can I take?” Look. It’s very clear to me that there is only one seat open. And that’s the bitch seat. If they like you enough, maybe someone else will sit in the middle while you take a window seat in the back. But it’s clear that they don’t. So just accept that you will always be in the bitch seat. I mean, your friends drive to school all the time while you take the bus. They’re probably disappointed that they ran into you at the bus stop and now feel socially obligated to give you a ride.
0:52- Aww, these kids only have one dance move… Which is bobbing their heads and moving their hands and arms in a sinusoidal motion.
1:06- I don’t like to make fun of the way people say things so I’ll omit anything about the way she enunciates “Friday.” I will not, however, overlook the irony that is the enthusiasm with which she sings “fun, fun, fun, fun.” That’s how I express my joy when people tell me they’re studying.
1:11- Does no one think it’s weird that all of her friends have been replaced with new people BUT THAT THEY STILL USE THE SAME CAR? WHOSE CAR IS THAT?!
1:12- I understand that these white girls cannot dance. This video drips with teenage awkwardness and the lack of any sort of rhythm. But in this moment, both girls in the backseat brush their hair back AT THE SAME TIME! It’s uncanny! Was this a command from the director? Or did they both just realize they were out of moves?
1:12.5- They’re cruising on a highway sitting on the trunk of a convertible without any seat belts once again. Let’s ignore that they’re not flying off or that the wind isn’t whipping in their faces, but where are the police that should be pulling this shit over?
1:22- Her friend is on her right. That’s funny because that’s the only girl who looks like she would have been in the car in the morning. You know how people are racist and they say they can’t tell black people or Asian people apart? Well, sometimes I can’t tell blonde girls apart. I’m pretty sure it’s not the same girl who was in the front seat before school, but I can’t be sure.
1:27- This is when we— and the girl on the left— realize that she is not Rebecca Black’s friend. Sadface. If you look closely enough, you can glimpse the utter betrayal in Left’s face. It kinda looks like Left’s about to cry. I want to see Left’s response video: “Saturday”
1:28- Is this girl really still thinking about which seat to take? She is in the middle of a freeway, sitting in the SAME seat she sat in this morning! THE BITCH SEAT. Has she deluded herself into thinking that her friends will actually let her choose next time?
2:06- This is probably my favorite part of the song. Time to learn our days of the weeks, boys and girls! Okay okay. So you’re telling me that yesterday was Thursday, Thursday. And that today is Friday, Friday. Thank you so much for repeating the days of the week, because I wasn’t sure that was the answer until you did that.
2:14- Now a grammar lesson: We we we so excited. We gonna have a ball today. Oh! I I I I get now! I gonna go take test now. We we we play when I go home? NO! Because my parents friggin’ grounded me for failing the 9th grade and speaking like a 5 year old. Don’t they know that bad grammar isn’t cool when a white person does it?
2:23- To redeem herself, Rebecca will stick to teaching us what she knows best: days of the week. Okay, so if today is Friday… What does this mean for the rest of the week?
2:30- Oh no. What is happening? Is this older, black rapper going to make an appearance in this white girl’s video? I think the age of this man is inappropriate for the video. In Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” Ludacris reflects on love at a young age. Is it just me or does it seem like the man in “Friday” is driving so he can meet up with these kids? Well, at least this video will teach us a lesson. After getting their party broken up by a child molester, the kids will flee in their cars, but all die because they were not seatbelted. This video has the potential to be the "Reefer Madness" of high school parties.
Those are the things that really irritate me in the video. There’s the occasional awkward dance or strange lyric, but I’m not gonna get on this poor girl for every little infraction… I mean, if you were taking the test but misspelled a word, you wouldn’t want points off for every time you misspelled it, right?
First, I want to take a moment to thank (in no particular order) Wong Fu Productions, Kev Jumba, and David Choi for making "Dance To This Song." If you haven't heard it yet, feel free to take a moment and play it.
Clever, right? Not only is it successfully satirical, but it is also, as it promises, pretty damn catchy! From random cheering to auto-tune, "Dance To This Song"is an irreverent spoof (is that redundant?) to Top 40s music. My favorite line is in the opener. "Yeah, uh, it sounds like that other song." "But it's NOT, it's THIS song."
The best part of all? ASIANS!
Why you gotta do dat, recycleorburn? Why bring race into this? Sorry, it's what my blog's about. Okay, okay, that's all I had to say about the fact that it was made by Asians. Now let's see if we can get it on the radio!
Kev Jumba also had another video blog (is that what he calls them?) about the ridiculousness of lyrics. You can watch it, of course. (optional. no wait. EXTRA CREDIT. oh, whatever, it's just fun. PLUS, you can see people livin' it up like Ke$ha and brushing their teeth with Jack Daniels! SPOILER ALERT: it's not pleasant)
Top 40 music has a tendency of talking about partying, sex, and drugs. Check out the Billboard Hot 100 for yourself. Lady Antebellum's crossover hit "Need You Now" is the sole country song in the top 10, and even that is about drinking! Lately it's been a face-off between B.o.B and Rihanna for the #1 spot, and it looks like Jason DeRulo's heading on up! (Okay, maybe not, but I just really love Jason DeRulo! "In My Head") Now this is a bad example because B.o.B.'s "Nothin' on You" is actually a sweet little diddy about fidelity and both inner and outer natural beauty. Rihanna's "Rude Boy," on the other hand, is a raunchy piece about sexual prowess. But you didn't know that, did you? Do people listen to lyrics anymore? "Come here, rude boy boy, can you get it up? Come here, rude boy boy, is you big enough?" REALLY? What do you think this song is about? Take heed and be sure to listen to the lyrics. Do you really want to be caught singing lyrics like these? You know, everytime I note that Timb[aland + erlake]'s "Carry Out" is about the fast food industry, everyone always goes, "Wait, WHAT?!" Go ahead and listen to the lyrics of your favorite song. As the internet's favorite 5 Asian guys said... "Drink, girls, dance, beat, blah blah, repeat"
I keep a journal. I'm usually very good with it and write often... except when I'm off at college. Then life goes on and I leave it locked in my drawer. My last entry is from March 20, 2010. That's why it makes sense that my last blog was in November. I apologize for my inconsistent writing. Let's try to improve on that! Come on, I'm a n00b and only have 3 entries!
There isn't a shortage of ideas. Upcoming entries include "Asian Parents Don't Hug" and "Asians Can't Date" to name the next few. Perhaps something like "Am I Racist?" for my white friends with whom I play a little game called "Oh my god, that's so white!" (It's a silly game really, but it's a moment when we take the most stereotypical things about white people and see if they're true. "Do you like, go camping? Or, like, talk to your neighbors?")
I was sparked to write again because I was given the opportunity to participate in a study. What kind of study? I was asked about my Asian-American upbringing and the immigrant experience of my parents. I got paid $10 to talk about being Asian! SUCCESS! I gave the researcher the link to this blog so she's probably going to be reading it! HA! (She's still looking for a handful of participants, so Facebook me if you're interested.)
It got me thinking about my parents and how much I, even as a child, was responsible for helping them. Something I've always been embarrassed to do is argue with a salesperson. Perhaps this stems from the fact that I had to do this quite often. Who's in line making a return and a fake excuse? Me. Who's calling up cable companies and asking them to guide me through the problem? Me. Who's on sales calls at the age of fourteen dealing with steel vendors for my parents' company? Me. Okay, this last one is probably only me, but I'm sure you can identify with the other stuff! The point is that having that skill of being able to speak good English was sometimes a pain in the arse.
I never really thought of it this way, but it definitely built my responsibility level to have to deal professionally with so many adults at such a young age. My life-skills were being honed at such a young age! A blessing in disguise, you might say. There's an extra charge on my credit card? Call it in! My computer is broken? Call it in! "I can't do it!" I remember whining to my mom (it probably sounded super whiny because I might have been like 10 years old). "LEARN how to do it." Oh shit, now it sounds like an inspirational movie.
That being said, I wonder how my kids are going to be? Certainly, I don't need them calling in companies for me because I possess the skills I need. Am I depriving them of this great experience? A rite of passage? Maybe that's pushing it. This is how I feel when I don't want my little cousins jumping around from table tops ("It's dangerous! But... I did it too...") or playing with knives (I played with knives and boxcutters and things, which sounds pretty dangerous, but I'm pretty sure I never cut anyone and I was never cut myself. My parents didn't hand them to me, by the way, I just found where they were because I was super mischievous). Part of me wants to keep them safe, but part of me wants to let them explore. I did all that crazy kid stuff and turned out fine! But I digress. Giving crazy tasks to children helps them learn and helps prepare themselves for the future.
I'm not "feelin'" this entry because it lacks structure, so let's end it now. We'll just call it my... welcome back entry! More to come quite soon, I promise!
I'm one of those people who equate frugality with being Asian. You'll see me at McDonald's just grabbing a fat stack of napkins. Why pay for something you can get for free?
"Damn, that's HELLA Asian." (yes, I've revealed my Bay Area affiliation)
I guess it's not PC (politically correct) to say such a thing... to associate a negative quality with a race of peoples. Like how running late is considered "being on _______ time" (feel free to insert whatever culture you tend to... Filipino, Armenian, Chinese, etc). I still do it though!
We don't own bottles of ketchup. We have handfuls of packets at any given time. Before I started middle school we didn't have paper in the house. I used to draw on old calendar rip-away sheets and the backs of cardboard puzzle boards. I don't use tissues. I'm not sure if I know how to use them. If we wanted to blow our noses, we used toilet paper. It's cheaper to buy.
My mother grew up poor in Vietnam. Her family knows how to... cheat the system. See, I'm scared to say anything. I'll either get in trouble or end up influencing young minds. I'll speak hypothetically then.
Hypothetical situation #1: You need a dress. You buy this dress. Be careful when removing the tag. Try to slip out the plastic thing instead of ripping it off or cutting in. That way, after wearing said dress to some elegant event, you can slip back the tag on. Make sure you spot clean! Be courteous! It's kinda like... dress rentals.
Hypothetical situation #2: You buy an item... let's call it a video game for $50. You open said video game and play it. Gosh darnit you discover that this video game is on sale at some other store! All you have to do is buy the new one at store #2, but return the new one at store #1 with store #1 receipt. Get it? Good. This one is totally moral too!
Well, you get my drift. When money can be saved, it will be saved. My mom once drove back to the store one time because she didn't get an extra dollar off. Gas and time don't really factor into any equation of cost. Labor is uncharged. We do it for the love of the game.
BTW, if you haven't done so already, you MUST watch this Russell Peters sketch. It explains the cheapness of Chinese people quite well.
You can buy into the pop culture and idolize Tina Fey and Angelina Jolie, but there must be times when you sit back and wonder, "Where Have All the Asians Gone?"
Thanks to Wesley Chan of Wong Fu Productions (the creators of "Yellow Fever") and Twitter, I recently read this article on CNN entitled "Five rising Asian-American stars to watch." Here's the link for your skimming pleasure: http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/29/five-rising-asian-american-stars-to-watch/. If you don't really feel like clicking, here's the shortlist (hopefully not in any order):
1) Far East Movement
2) David Choi
3) Brenda Song
4) Aaron Yoo
5) Wong Fu Productions
When I was in high school, I wrote an article for a faux magazine project about how there are only a handful of Asian actors for Asian-specific roles (Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Lucy Liu, etc). Not surprisingly, nearly all of the ones I named were Chinese. This is not the case presently, as I find most Asian-American actors to be Korean (Aaron Yoo above, John Cho, Ken Jeong, and Sandra Oh to name some of the more prominent ones). But I'm sure as hell not going to stand here and wonder where all the Chinese actors have run off to for the past 10 years and why Korean actors have filled that Asian niche when we have a collective issue on our hands.
The fact that this list exists proves what little influence Asians have on the American pop culture. To drop big Asian names like these is sadly merely saying, "These are the biggest guns we've got. You probably don't know them, though." The fact that I point and gleefully shout "ASIAN!" whenever I spot one on TV is definitely telling us something about how rare of an occurrence it is. (Speaking of Glee, I'm glad to find two Asians in the cast! Jenna Ushkowitz as a semi-main, secondary character and Harry Shum Jr as a tertiary one aka "that Asian guy that dances.")
Over the past couple of years I have been noticing an increase in Asians in the media. Barney will, from time to time, try to pick up an Asian girl on How I Met Your Mother, and it's no mistake that America is becoming familiarized with John Cho's face from roles both Asian (reprising George Takei's role as Sulu in the new Star Trek and portraying our generation's Cheech & Chong as the pot-loving, burger-chasing Harold of Harold and Kumar) and race-neutral (Cho is riveting as an ill-fated FBI agent on Flash Forward). I've also started to notice the abundance in ABC Family's sidekick characters (Greek, 10 Things I Hate About You, Melissa & Joey), which I consider a huge step forward.
I wonder if it isn't about where we've gone, but where we're going. Most Asians in America haven't been here for too long. I'd guess that about 90% of the ones that I know are first or second generation. How many Asians in America can't even speak English (a majority of my family, that's for sure)? Certainly if we want roles that aren't Asian stereotypes (no disrespect to Jackie Chan) then we have to be able to play those parts. Let's think about it in reverse for a bit. How would the Caucasian community in Korea feel? How can they have better representation and better roles than playing the white-man-from-America-who-seems-really-nice-and-can-even-speak-Korean-but-ends-up-being-a-drunkard (yeah, I'm talking to you, Sad Love Story).
All I'm saying is to give it time. We're new to this "being in the American media" thing, so we have to break out somehow. With every mention of "Asian-American stars to watch," we gain a little bit more presence and recognition. Sir Isaac Newton once said (and my professor ALWAYS said), "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." We are building a path, and everyone is contributing to our future.
Representation is another story all together. We'll save Shelby Woo for another day as well.
Welcome to the very first post of Twinkie Town! Like most blogs, this first entry will serve as an introduction to my style (aka flavor, or as we say in my hood, FLAY-VAH), topics of interests, and origin of the blog's name.
twin-kie (n)
1: a yellow sponge cake with cream filling manufactured by Hostess
2: an indestructible and imperishable substance (see THE SIMPSONS)
3: a person of Asian (usually Chinese) descent who has been assimilated into the American culture (Synonyms: banana, ABC, toe-gee , tu2 sheng1 )
This blog takes its origins from the third definition. Basically it means someone who is ethnically Asian (yellow on the outside), but culturally American (white on the inside!).
I grew up in San Francisco, so there was no shortage of Asians. My first language was Cantonese, but I soon learned English. I'm not exactly sure how or when, because my parents probably didn't speak more than 5 words of English when I was a baby. My brother knew English from school, so he must have spoken at me, and I must have hung onto his every word (just like now! Aww, he's my big bro!) until I acquired English as my second language. That's my linguistic point of view. If you want to hear the cute story my mom tells then I picked up English from watching Disney Sing-Along tapes. I do have an affinity for sing-alongs... Anyways, I recall speaking perfect English by the time I entered preschool.
When I was in the 1st grade my mother's family came over from Vietnam (Chinese people living in Vietnam! It's a common occurrence and a story for another day). My grandparents as well as 2 aunts and 3 new uncles (my mom has 12 siblings... a story for another day indeed) moved in with us. As a child, this was the best thing EVER. I had so many people to play with and there was never a shortage of food as I think my grandma cooks 24/7. Note that all of these people came from Asia not knowing much English either.
So how is it that I turned into a Twinkie? How did I turn into a "toe-gee" ridiculed by my relatives about being a white girl born into the body of a Chinese one?
Let this be a lesson on the power of American societal pressures and the media. Somewhere along the way I felt the need to suppress my Chinese culture to become more "American." I feel like this is a common situation in the development of Asian-Americans.
1) raised in Asian environment
2) start school system and introduced to American culture
3) become immersed in American culture and feel the need to assimilate
4) increase the amount of English spoken in the home ("Chinglish")
5) if you don't use it, you lose it. Chinese language ability decreases, unknowingly
6) realize that the Asian culture is very valuable and attempt to retrieve it
7) solidify identity as an Asian-American
While this blog won't necessarily focus on Asian topics, it will certainly be the reflection of an Asian-American mind. Being Asian-American is not something that I can pull myself away from.
Thanks for reading! I need a cool sign-out. How about, "Recycle or burn, people! Take care of the Earth!" Too preachy? We'll work on it.
